


One Warm Line

by ImpudentGuttersnipe



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Punk, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Bad Goth Band Clichees, Bad Weather, F/F, F/M, Gender or Sex Swap, M/M, Rock Star Tantrums, The Punk Rock Reunion Tour From Hell, Trash People Doing Trash Things, blatant mockery, lesbian!Hickey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 03:58:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15699702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpudentGuttersnipe/pseuds/ImpudentGuttersnipe
Summary: A rookie Rolling Stone reporter thinks she's got a plum assignment when she's sent on tour as an embedded journalist with two reunited, rival bands from the 80's that she used to love back in the day. Even with what she knows of their reputations for mayhem, substance abuse, and occasional stabbings, she could not have been prepared for what was in store. Sex, drugs, punk rock, and a chance that most of them might even survive!





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: THIS FIC IS POLITICALLY INCORRECT, AND PROUD OF IT! PUNK FUCKING ROCK!!!

New York

June, 1996

Even after five years in the city, Silna still hates it here. The summer heat, the humidity that leaves her skin coated in a sticky, greasy film after ten minutes without air conditioning, the smog that clings to her like soot and fills her lungs like cheap cigarette smoke, all are bad enough without the constant noise, the bombardment of people from every direction, all so loud, the traffic, the channels of high, harsh sunlight that suddenly blaze down to blind the unwary in the canyons between the towers of steel, glass, and concrete. She had been foolish enough to think that her four year Journalism degree at Ryerson Polytechnic, in the heart of Toronto, plus three years covering every decent club gig in the city for Now magazine, seldom seeing her bed before 3AM, would have prepared her for this. After all, Toronto is just Canadian New York, right? Mostly the same, just cleaner, safer, and a whole lot smaller? She’d adjusted pretty goddamn well to city life for a girl from Iqaluit, hadn’t she? She rides the subways, eats with chopsticks in Chinatown, knows where the hip shops for vintage clothes that aren’t too expensive are, and how to pair them with a good leather jacket and Doc Martens in the ridiculous season they call “winter” down here. She dyes streaks of David Bowie orange into her jet black hair, and never removes her sunglasses outdoors. Silna Sixamieua’s name and work graces the pages of nothing less than Rolling Stone magazine - the Holy Bible of rock and roll. It is the job of her dreams, being paid to listen to and review the newest albums by the sorts of bands she’d reverently listened to scratchy bootleg tapes of, back in her Arctic childhood. She is paid to go to the sort of concerts she had only ever dreamed of previously, with seating either among the sound techs, standing in the wings, or up at the lip of the stage between security and the band. Her Press Pass, with the sacred RS logo on it, buys her access and preferential treatment everywhere, and from everyone. And unlike back in Canada, she’s not just another dirty Indian here – just last week, during a backstage interview after a blisteringly good show, Trent Reznor himself had told her how beautiful she was, and asked what her name meant, in between lines of coke. Here, she is glamourous, an exotic. She has made it. She loves the music. She loves her work. She loves her albino ferret, Tuunbaq, the best pet she can fit into a New York apartment. She loves being surrounded by museums and galleries, some of the world’s best, and going to the sushi bar on the corner whenever she feels like it. So why is she still so unhappy?

 

From Rolling Stone magazine (June 1996 – by Silna Sixamieua)

Holy Terrors

Hot gossip from across the pond – Irish punk breakthrough success The Terrors are reuniting, planning a North American tour, and will possibly even be recording new material again. Anyone who remembers early 80’s punk rock will remember songs like “If It Ain’t Broken Let’s Break It” (a reference to certain very specific drug and property laws, and then English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s skull,) and their amped up cover of the Stan Rogers classic “Northwest Passage”. If it seems strange that they’d do a kick ass cover of a Canadian folk song, here’s some music trivia for you: three members of the band are actually related to members of the doomed Franklin Expedition referenced in the song’s chorus, and have said that you can hear their legacy of exploitation, lead poisoning, and cannibalism in their sound. With Manky Franky’s angry, whisky-voiced social commentary, the way that Dirty Delia the Dublin Dyke could shred on that Strat’, the kind of trauma that Belfast Blanky could inflict on an innocent drum kit, and the way they went through bass players like they ate them, they may be onto something. We’ll see who from their past lineup they can resurrect for this tour, or if they’re bringing along fresh meat this time. The smart money says that after all those legal troubles, Johnny I is out of the question, in spite of his having been a fan favourite. Only time will tell who’s going to be joining in to tear it up again with The Terrors.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a definite difference between how a rock star and a magazine writer take criticism of their work... And Tuunbaq makes his fearsome debut!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken so long - the small shitstorm of overreacting anti's that this first stirred up actually got to me a bit more than I was willing to admit, and writing was being difficult for a while. But this is ROCK AND ROLL, and that means that if someone's pissed off, something's going right here, so as Freddie Mercury, the Queen himself said, The Show Must Go On! If you think you're going to be horribly offended by anything at all, ever, go read something else now.

From Rolling Stone magazine (July 1996 – album review by Silna Sixamieua)

 

Erebus – Close (2 ½ stars)

 

There comes a time in the career of every long standing band when they have to make a hard decision: either stick with the sound that won you your following in the first place, and tour comfortably on everyone’s old favourite songs, or retire out of sheer embarrassment. With the album “Close”, goth noise stalwarts Erebus may just have reached that time. Although an effort seems to have been made at uniting the disparate songs churned out by this tired machine into some kind of coherent whole through repeated lyrics and occasionally out of place rhythmic and tonal motifs, on “Close” Erebus come across as a band in the middle of an identity crisis, trying on old and new sounds to find something that just might fit, and never quite succeeding. There are individual songs that are fairly listenable, such as the Damned-flavoured post-punk rocker “Party Dress”, “Ice For Miles”, with its fuzzed-out wall of Cure-esque guitar noise and grinding quasi-industrial drum machine beats, and the downright haunting, ethereal, echoes of “Standstill”, which sounds like it could easily be a newly discovered Bauhaus track. And there lies the problem with this album – everything that isn’t a songwriting shipwreck sounds like it might have been recorded by some other band, at some other time. The lyrics are at least consistently opaque, pretentious, and baffling, but lack the poetic charm and whimsy of Tori Amos or Bjork. No, vocalist and lyricist James obviously wants you to take everything he has to say very seriously, which might be possible, if it were possible to comprehend any of what is being said. The one lyric I can agree with wholeheartedly is when he bemoans that his “compass is spinning” and he’s “so hopelessly lost.” Instrumentally, this album is workmanlike and predictable, with a few standout moments scattered here and there, (is that the ghost of Mick Ronson on guitar on the otherwise lukewarm track “Tin Can”?), but never enough to really pull it out of mediocrity. My hat is off to the eponymous Doctor for his masterful efforts at mixing and production, on top of having covered nearly all the rhythm, percussion, and sampling duties for this album, some of which are worthy of the likes of Skinny Puppy or Ministry, but no amount of production wizardry, no matter how good, is capable of fully saving this mess. Longtime fans will doubtless enjoy this album, and a couple of tracks will garner some play in dark clubs full of rubber clothes and clove cigarette smoke. But the real question is have Erebus made an album worth buying and listening to more than once? Close, but no cigar.

 

London, July, 1996.

Across the pond, London may as well be of a different planet than New York, in the midst of this unseasonable but not considerably unreasonable cold snap. Damp, grey and chill, where both old and new buildings close in and collaborate with the constant mist to press down on one’s shoulders and bow one’s head with a sense of the centuries past, where even the noise and bustle of the busiest streets is dampened by this conspiracy of fog and time, only the brilliant greens of grass and trees, relieved of their midsummer thirst, in occasional parks and gardens remain as a reminder that unmuted colour exists in this world. The tall, slender, and rather handsome man stalking toward a well-kept Georgian close cuts through the fog like a blackened blade, or the reinforced carbon edge of the Space Shuttle’s wing on re-entry, and he appears to be just as purposeful and nearly as dangerous. Or so he likes to think of himself. He is dressed entirely in black, from his extremely slim fitting jeans, (which cling to long, lean, shapely legs, and are artfully torn so as to escape obscenity by mere inches), his equally well-fitted v-necked tee shirt, (fitted well enough to deliberately reveal the outline of matched nipple piercings), carefully scuffed combat boots, tastefully studded belt, and hip length vintage leather jacket. Completing the look, his shoulder length hair is dyed a glossy blue-black, artfully layered and dishevelled, gleaming like the wing of a starling under fluorescent light. His face is long and pale, with high cheekbones and a strongly angled jawline, all carefully set in a neutral lack of expression, the better to hide the encroaching signs of age, eyes hidden behind sleek wraparound shades. His hands are as long, slim, and pale as the rest of him presumably is under those black clothes, thought the right is clenched white-knuckle tight around a rolled-up magazine. He does not slow his long-legged stride when he enters the close, nor when he reaches the large, centrally placed door that is his obvious destination. He barely slows as he opens it into a comfortable reception area, with dark green carpet, silk wallpaper, soft, dark leather chairs, and well framed rock posters and publicity photos lining the walls. He takes the stairs at his left two at a time, pointedly ignoring the fuss of the receptionist from the desk he had deliberately ignored at the door, and heading straight for the office at the end of the hall with the determination and single-mindedness of a heat seeking missile. How dare that harpy on the stairs screech about appointments! He doesn’t need an appointment here – he’s someone _important!_

He doesn’t bother to knock on the office door, slamming it open and barely breaking his long stride until he is directly in front of the dark antique desk, on which he slaps down the unfurled magazine, and his spidery white hand on top of it. The portly middle aged man behind the desk does not even blink, as though he’s had an appointment for this enraged intrusion set for weeks.

“John!” hisses the man in black, sunglasses slipping down his nose to reveal dark eyes, accented in tastefully smudged black liner, and flashing with anger. “Have. You. Seen. This. Travesty!” Though the last word is shouted in a very good impromptu thrash metal scream, the man named John remains still and impassive in his seat, a vague half-smile on his face.

“Relax, James. I don’t see any travesties here, just this month’s copy of Rolling Stone.” _And one transvestite,_ he thinks, _but it’s always been good publicity that James likes to wear those flowing dresses and skimpy leather lingerie on camera and on stage._ _Dramatic and transgressive._ _Bit of a gothic Bowie thing._ _Always manages to look good in it all, too._

“No… Did you actually read the fucking review, John? Did you read what that American bitch had the fucking gall to write about us? About the new album?!?”

The man named John leans back in his ergonomic leather office chair, running a tired hand through his collar length, iron grey hair, and heaves a sigh. Although, with his somewhat rounded build, anachronistic sideburns, and mismatched combination of 1970’s vintage tweed suit and  aged , limited edition Pink Floyd tour shirt, he may not look much like one of Britain’s top talent managers, in the case of John Franklin,  founder  of Franklin Artist Management, looks are deceiving. He may have been fired from his gig as a roadie not long after he acquired the shirt he’ s  wearing, due to sheer incompetence and ineptitude at everything but scoring good acid for the band , and his talent for music might be inversely proportionate to his love for it, but people _like him_ , damn it, and he’s managed to parly that one positive in a sea of negative personal attributes into a successful and lucrative career doing something he loves. He can even soothe down a professional drama queen like James when he’s determined to have a self-inflicted aneurysm.

“Sit down, James,” he says now, in a deep, rich, and soothing voice that could have been perfect for the Shakespearean stage. “Let’s talk about this. Would a drink help things?”

James  grudgingly  settles into one of the comfortable chairs in front of the desk, the leather backrest squeaking  in protest against his jacket,  and scowls across at John. 

“Drinking didn’t help a thing last night, except to temporarily stop the Doctor from completely tearing down and rebuilding everything electronic in the studio, and to stop Henry crying.  Temporarily. ”

“Oh dear. So they’ve seen it  too, then. Have you heard from them today?” James shakes his head impatiently.

“The Doctor’s barricaded himself in the studio, had all the locks changed, and isn’t answering any calls. God knows what he’s doing in there with his machines.  I tried a window, but all I could hear was strange banging noises and cursing. I didn’t even know that Doc knew some of those words.  And after last night, Henry’s probably still asleep.” 

This  isn’t entirely a lie, except perhaps by omission. Erebus’s handsome and talented multi-instrumentalist Henry LeVesconte was a sensitive soul who didn’t take to criticism well, and had shown up in tears at James’s door the previous evening while he’d been attempting to subdue the frantic Doctor.  And, well, although they’d split up amicably years before, enough shared misery and Stolichnaya could easily lead a man to forget two of the cardinal rules of life: never sleep with a bandmate, and never sleep with an ex. From what James could remember of the evening, those rules had been well worth breaking  once Doc had safely passed out, as he and Henry had comforted each other in every carnal way  that they knew,  their very skin gladly  remembering each  other’s familiar touch, and  muscle memory directing  each way to drive the other mad with lust, desire, and pleasure, until they’d finally collapsed in an exhausted, sweaty, drunken heap just before dawn. As far as James knows, Henry is still back at his place, gorgeously naked in a state of blissful unconsciousness, as James had left him.

“ You two didn’t have sex  again , did you?” asks John wearily. “You remember what happened last time.” James rolls his eyes.

“No, Sir, we grown adults have learned our lesson. No sex was had. Although I can’t vouch for the Doctor and his machines...” Now John rolls his eyes.

“I swear to God James, you may claim to be grown adults, but you lads are really just a few overgrown teenage monsters. The lot of you would be lost without me, and you know it. ”  The smile on his face is genuinely warm. “Now, here’s what I want you to do. Stop the worrying – it’s only one bad review...”

“It’s Rolling Stone!” counters James in a  high-pitched,  petulant whine.

“… Which is only one magazine. There are others. And your real fan base don’t give a shit what the mainstream press have to say anyway. You know that. Now I want you all to take one week to get your bloody heads together. And I don’t mean by binging on  whatever’s being promoted by the Drug of the Month Club , or going on a week long boozer, or fucking Henry OR expensive rent boys for a week. I mean  _real_ relaxation and stress reduction. Go for a pedicure  and a massage , go shopping,  try to eat a proper meal and get some sleep, for God’s sake, and start thinking about your North American tour that I’m  in the process of booking for you. Because I need you lads to be ready to start rehearsing and behaving like professionals in a week. I will see you all here, in my office, in one week’s time. Is that understood, James? ” There is no answer from the human personification of a sulk slouched in the chair across the desk from John, so he continues, unfazed. 

“Come on, you’re a pro! If anyone can get past this, it’s you, and I need you to be the  leader for those other two silly wankers, and for the new lad we’ve picked up for the tour. You’re strong, you’re beautiful, and you’ve got more than what it takes to get out there and break even more hearts than  ever before! Make  those crowds of Yanks all go home and cry into their pillows  while they jerk off  over you again!”

 “Well, when you put it that way...” A slow, seductive smile creeps across James’s face, an expression far more dangerous than his earlier wrath. He wonders idly if Henry is still in his bed, and if he’s too badly hung over for an encore performance.

“You’re a good lad, James,” lies John, who has no delusions about James being an absolute self-obsessed horror. A rock star, in fact. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d best be heading over to the studio with a locksmith and Doc’s psychiatrist, before the damage is irreparable. Oh, and Lady Jane wanted me to invite you all for dinner sometime this week. You know how she loves you boys, and having dinner guests. We’ll be in touch.”

 

Meanwhile; New York.

Silna lays back on the couch, enjoying the feel of cool white leather on her overheated tan skin. Her apartment might be tiny, and in a slightly questionable neighbourhood, but thank the gods of the modern world, it’s air conditioned. Without such small, necessary, luxuries, she’s not sure whether she could actually survive a summer at this latitude. Even now, in her own, neat, private space, with the cool blue painted walls and the minimalist Ikea décor, accented here and there with some of her Aunt Sarah’s carvings in walrus ivory and soapstone, with framed prints of Rothkos and Jimi Hendrix on the walls, she feels naked and exposed in the shorts and tank top she’s been wearing all day; she’d never worn so little out of doors until a decade ago, and it still feels strange to have her arms and legs completely bared to the elements. But, as her Uncle Louie had taught her on the many hunting and camping trips she’d taken with him leading her brothers and cousins while growing up, one does what is needed to survive, and the lesson holds true in New York as well as on Baffin Island.

She begins to idly flip through the magazine she’d taken with her from work yesterday. Unlike some of her co-workers, she doesn’t pore obsessively over every month’s finished product, pretending that she’s not looking for her own writing, there in the glossy print of the most important music magazine in the world, the word of the Rock Gods. But her editor, Eddie, had tossed a mag onto her desk, saying that there was something in the letters that might give her a laugh. She’s gotten to know Eddie pretty well while working with him, and vice-versa, and they’ve shared plenty of laughs over beers and a similarly biting sense of humour, so she’s sure that someone will have written something so idiotic and/or absurd that whoever handled the mail felt the need to print it for comic relief. A quick scan of the columns does not disappoint.

“Hey Tuunbaq!” she calls, clicking her tongue to catch the little monster’s attention. There’s a rustling noise from deep within the couch, and then a tiny, white, triangular head with inquisitive, dark red eyes pokes up from between two cushions. Although he technically lives in a massive, multi-level “ferret condo”, Silna can’t stand keeping Tuunbaq caged when she’s at home, and so he’s built nests inside the structures of her couch and bed, and has a cozy nap-burrow in her sock drawer, which he regularly plunders for chew toys. He’s destroyed the television’s coaxial cable five times so far. Silna thinks this is adorable, as long as he leaves her iMac and her guitar alone. So far, he has.

“There you are, Tuuny! There’s my little woozle!” she coos, as the long, sleek body snakes up from out of the couch, and she scratches gently behind his ears, until he squirms away. Silna feels tiny needling claws pierce the back of her shirt, and then her shoulder, as her mighty beast climbs to his favourite perch, with his head emerging from the curtain of hair next to her left ear, which he nips playfully.

“Okay, Tuunbaq, you won’t _believe_ the bullshit that some people write in to waste our time at the magazine. Want to hear something funny?” Tuunbaq chitters something that sounds like assent, in ferret. 

“This letter’s from some stupid bitch named Jenny Grant, who obviously has too much damn time on her hands.” Silna clears her throat, before she begins to read aloud, in a pompous and oratorical fashion. 

“This is in regard to certain highly offensive statements made by “Silna Sixamieua” regarding the upcoming reunion by the Terrors. I’m sure that a girl who has made up such a ridiculous and pretentious name just to sound cool will have no idea of the bad taste she’s shown in writing about an Irish band, when the Irish have faced so much racism and persecution over their long history. She really should have done some research into history before using terms like “whisky-voiced”, when the Irish are victim to such a negative stereotype for drunkenness, or describing a drummer from Belfast “traumatising” his instrument, as it brings up the violence of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and Belfast especially. As for the names used to describe Ms. Delia Hickey, if she wishes to refer to herself in such degrading terms, that might be her right, but the rest of us should not be exposed to such slurs, self-inflicted or not, particularly not in a magazine with such a diverse readership where actual lesbians might be offended by such words. Also, the references made to cannibalism, disinterment, and “fresh meat”, in relation to the historical Franklin Expedition were in the worst taste possible. I recommend you either train your writers in cultural sensitivity, or better yet, replace this one.” Silna laughs long and loud, and Tuunbaq chatters along, scrambing to the top of her head.

“Oh Tuuny, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried! And there’s an Editor’s Note just below it!”

“ _Just for reference, Silna Sixamieua is a real name. She is Canadian Inuit, from the Netsilik tribe. If anyone would like to discuss the plight of marginalised people and their experiences of racial discrimination and stereotyping, we’re sure she’d be glad to engage you, if she doesn’t have better things to do, like writing our magazine.”_

Silna reaches up and pets the  white ferret curling himself in her  black hair. 

“Okay, I’ve got to call Eddie and thank him for this one.  I owe him a beer for this, at least...” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on representation: the author is not mocking any groups she is not or has not been a part of, being an old-school goth, who once sang in the World's Worst Band Ever, and of Irish descent. If you can't take a joke, what the fuck are you doing reading fanfic?


End file.
